


new romantics

by TheAceApples



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Clone Troopers Speak Mando'a (Star Wars), GFY, M/M, Minor CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27753190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAceApples/pseuds/TheAceApples
Summary: The many AUs of ARC Trooper Jesse and Darth Maul.
Relationships: CT-5597 | Jesse/Darth Maul
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	1. irony

**Author's Note:**

> jessemaul that doesn't/can't fit into "king of the damned"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: ":\\\\... thinking about what to send in for the prompts... jessemaul soulmate au?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a few days before i got this prompt i had the horribly funny idea of a soulmate au where jango and maul are soulmates but maul ends up with a clone and would pick the clone over jango even if he'd like faked his death or something. so this was perfect!

They aren't each other's soulmates.

It isn't as disheartening as most people would might expect it to be. Jesse's soulmate is Kix, Maul's soulmate is dead, it's an interesting kind of balance. Neither of them are overly bothered by the other's mark, though Maul holds a kind of fascination with the bright, unfaded colors of Kix's name.

And, perhaps, with Kix himself.

Jesse, for his part, acts like they're simply a triad with a missing side. He never ignores the faded and unreadable name on black and red skin, but nor does he seek to know what it once said. Maul, of all people, deserves that little bit of privacy.

The day Maul finally _notices_ that little bit of consideration, he stares quietly at the ceiling for a long time. Then says, with a sly curl of his mouth, "It started with jenth, if memory serves."

Jesse hits him with a pillow and the moment passes.

When he _does_ see the name, it's because Maul is sacked out under a set of UV lights, slathered in some kind of healing cream. And visible just over one of his hearts is jagged script in a familiar hand, reading **_Jango Fett._**

Staring at it in that moment, remembering his _dushne_ _vod's_ joke, Jesse doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He isn't a replacement, he knows that much.

Maul puts little stock in the concept of soulmates, even with Jesse routinely trying to knock his old master's teachings out of his head. He just isn't the romantic sort. To him, the Force-bond between them supersedes everything. So even if the soulmark was simply unrealized, rather than dead, Jesse wouldn't be worried about that.

It just seems... like a joke. A bad joke.

An ARC trooper falls into orbit with a Sith Lord. The Sith Lord's dead soulmate is the man who still occasionally stars in the ARC trooper's nightmares as a monster in the dark. Who made sure that all of the Sith Lord's extended family's childhoods were full of fear and pain.

He pines for Kix like a lost akk pup and that's the damn truth of it.

When Maul stirs back to consciousness, neither of them speak. Jesse helps him sit up and presses a careful kiss to his temple. Maul pretends like he's perfectly healthy and also not badly startled to see the name on his chest.

His brow furrows in a squint, reading it upside down, and then he gives a prim little snort and goes back to making Jesse regret all the trouble he ever gave Kix in the medbay. That night, he has the kitchen make them a lovely nerf steak dinner.

And if Jesse mentions that Fett had absolutely despised nerf meat when he was alive, then he certainly isn't the only one laughing about it.


	2. glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another soulmates au, for the prompt: "you're bleeding"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by "Endure the Burning" by Norcumi

Maul watched the clone struggle in Kast's iron grip with mild interest. She had stripped his helmet and upper armor to reveal a body lacking any of the fat deposits necessary for true health in Humans, a gaudy tattoo, and a rather impressive scowl. It _also_ revealed, “You’re bleeding.”

The clone curled his lip, looking as if he would very much like to return the favor.

“Saxon,” Maul chided, “this clone is our guest. There’s no need to damage him further.”

Gar Saxon darted a glare at the clone but bowed his head. “Apologies, my lord. I found him disrespectful of your person.”

The clone—the one who was older than his comrades, the one whose mind curled around the thought of Ahsoka Tano with affection and protectiveness, the one who would help Maul convince the girl of his plan—spat something in Mando’a that had Saxon’s face turning deep red and Kast pressing violet lips together in amusement.

Maul simply hummed and reached out to wipe away the trickle of blood from the clone’s mouth. It was... a miscalculation.

His gloves, discarded some time ago, would have prevented such a mistake. Would have kept their skin apart and Maul would have ransacked this clone’s mind to know Ahsoka Tano, her weaknesses and her strengths, neither of them any wiser. The revelation that they were meant to be... _something..._ to each other would have gone unrealized.

The warm golden glow lit up the dank room like nothing else could and everything within it froze.

He saw it in a flash of insight, that he would have harmed this clone and carried out his plan, uncaring. He saw that the plan would have to change.

The clone saw it as well.

Snarling fit for any Zabrak, he lunged, heedless of his restraints. The shields that he had desperately maintained thus far cracked and Maul was hit with wave after wave of rage and denial. The clone wasn’t just angry about his capture, there was an edge of fear, of despair, to his mind, bubbling up from the depths of his mind.

It was... an intriguing reaction.

Maul stepped close and caught the clone with the Force as he wrenched his way out of Kast’s grip. Careful not to make contact again, he examined the clone, body and mind, with interest. He writhed in the grip, eyes bright with hate, baring his teeth in defiance. Somehow, the display was utterly charming.

“Go to sleep,” Maul told him, pushing the compulsion against his mind. He fought viciously against it, but he was helpless compared to one trained by the Sith. Moving until he was only a hair’s breadth away, Maul redoubled his efforts. “Go. _To sleep.”_

The clone lashed out in panic as the order took hold, thrashing and growling with the last of his freedom. Then he slumped and was still.

Hesitation noticeable only to himself, Maul cupped a hand around the clone’s chin and examined the planes of his face. Brown skin and brown eyes, horrid tattoo and the finest layer of dark stubble growing along his too-thin jaw. The golden-orange light flared again where their skins met and no one dared speak for many long moments.

“Lord Maul,” Kast finally ventured, moving only slightly forward. She halted when his gaze found her. “Should we move the prisoner onto your ship?”

_Will you acknowledge the bond?_ was her true question. _Will you protect this clone over those you would slaughter?_

Mandalorians.

A predictably _romantic_ people. Even those who named themselves for death itself.

“That won’t be necessary,” Maul murmured in reply, peering deeply into the clone’s unconscious mind. It was easier with him asleep, his only defenses those natural ones that were easily bypassed. “The plan does not change.”

His commandos shifted uncomfortably at the implicit rejection, even of a clone. But Maul cared little for their opinions, caught in a web of memories of Ahsoka Tano and many others.

Including a young man with admirable violence etched into his skin who lit up at his clone's touch. Abandoning, just for a moment, his quest, Maul follows the thread of this new clone, with a healer's hands and bolts of lightning painstakingly shaved into his hair. A medic, handsome and caring.

_Kix._

His clone's first mate, whose presence gaped like an open wound in his clone's mind. Gone, missing, presumed dead, and then Maul, killing his remaining brothers and stealing him away, lighting up his skin as if, _as if—_

As if he was a replacement, Maul realized.

The clone feared Maul was a replacement for his missing mate, his Kix. And he didn't want a replacement, he wanted a friend, a lover, an _equal._ Someone who respected Jesse in a way that Maul had shown, most assuredly, he did not.

Slowly, Maul removed himself from his mate's mind and stepped away. "I have what I need," he said, flexing his hand before catching himself.

Kast looked sympathetic; Saxon merely confused.

That was fine. There was much they did not need to understand, and much that they never would. As long as they continued to follow him, it mattered little. He sent Saxon to kill Almec, ordered the syndicate leaders into hiding, and watched his mate sleep on while they waited for Lady Tano to arrive in the throne room.

She cried out for his mate, _Jesse,_ fearing him dead. “As a gesture of good will,” he said, reaching out with the Force and moving him through the air and into his brother’s arms. He— _Rex,_ she called him—reassured Lady Tano of, of _Jesse’s_ continued breath and carried him away.

Maul watched and did nothing, then turned his mind back to Lady Tano. _She_ was his focus.

For now.


End file.
